DAVID WHEELER: Dear L.A. Fitness

Monday

Jan 30, 2017 at 12:01 AM

David W. Wheeler

An open letter to my health club.

While I enjoy your health club services very much, I must protest one of your more puzzling business practices. Why, for the love of all that is good on this earth, do you have a swimming pool that is surrounded by windows? Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but some of us prefer a little privacy.

Honestly, it’s hard to not feel self-conscious with everyone from casual gym-goers to fitness freaks watching me splash around the pool. Part of me is embarrassed. But another part of me is worried that someone might mistake me for Moby Dick and let loose with a harpoon.

Now I realize this is New England and, as your name implies, you’re from Los Angeles, a place where sun-kissed movie stars sport year-round tans and Botox bodies. But surely, you must realize that many of us here in the Northeast do not like exposing our winter-ravaged bodies to the public.

While I can’t speak for everyone, I think I speak for a certain market segment when I say that we no more want people watching us swim than we want people watching us shower in the morning.

The bicycle spinning room seems to operate fine in almost total darkness, so what’s the problem with blocking the swimming pool from everyone’s line of sight? I’m pretty sure that windows cost more than solid walls, so I doubt it’s a money thing. Maybe it’s a marketing thing that I don’t totally understand. If so, I’d love to hear how it works.

Then again, maybe your corporate architects are body-shaming sadists who enjoy this kind of thing.

I’ll admit that your health club is one of the better ones in the area. The juice bar is decent, and I appreciate your commitment to cleanliness. Equipment-wise, there are plenty of treadmills and rowing machines for me to walk past when I visit your establishment.

You also have lots of attentive staff members who, in between policing the front desk for membership scofflaws, often find the time to explain how some of the more complicated machines work.

But I just can’t seem to get past this window thing.

The last health club I belonged to didn’t have a pool, but they did seem to understand their members privacy needs for some of the more….ummm…revealing exercises. Any machine that twisted you into a pretzel or made you feel like your private bits were on display was tastefully tucked against a wall.

Again, I hate to sound like I’m whining here, but facts are facts. (Not alternative facts, mind you. Just plain facts.) And for a few years now, the fact is I’ve been walking past your empty swimming pool wondering if I will ever get the courage to actually use the damn thing. I suspect more than a few of us feel the same.

So please, LA Fitness, I’m begging you. Please find it in your heart to put up a petition or a curtain or anything else that would prevent the poor folks walking by from having to see my flabby body. It’s the least you could do for all involved.

David Wheeler is a high school principal who lives in Brockton. Email him at misterwheeler@yahoo.com. His latest book, "Wherever I Am I Want To Be Somewhere Else," is available on Amazon.com. You can read his blog at dwwheeler.blogspot.com or read past columns.

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